I am obsessing over being half-asleep/half-awake and having odd, vague “dreams”.

These are not the lucid dreams of hynogogia but I hope they are another manifestations of it.

I’m stressing first because I noticed them suddenly and then became fixated on them. Trying to stop them or figure them out.I can’t see a psychiatrist, which my neurologist suggested this past summer, until June. My GP is reluctant to put me on any meds but agreed to 60 .5 mg pills of lorazapam a month. 1 mg a day which makes no difference when I take it. Even before sleep.

I find myself trying to analyze these “dreams”. But I freak as often I can’t. They are halfway vague. Like I see a fence and hear myself say “yes, it hides half of it”. But it’s like there should be more to the dream. Like a part of it is occurring subconsciously and I can’t connect with it. I will spend 5 minutes trying to make the half-dream make sense. Once in a while I can sort of figure it out. Like the fence dream, earlier that day I was told to make sure a plant was half-underground and half-above. Maybe that related to the fence hallucination.At times it’s bang, bang, bang. I wake up immediately (not that I am fully asleep as I’m not)and analyze or try to analyze what was going on. Then try to fall back asleep and another different “dream” arises.

Lucid dreams yes, rare 3-D images yes, but is this third thing also part of hynagogia?

Lucid dreams are very common. They are like living what you dream about. Because part of the mind is actually awake. As to the meaning of dreams. I never buy into all that symbols in dreams rubbish. Consider the brain as been like a giant computer. You go through your average day. You take a lot in during a full day. It has to be sorted out. This happens when we sleep. It is sorted into long term memory, the things we need to be able to remember and short term memory, the things we don't need to remember. Now we also have a thing called latent dream content. This is the BS content of every dream. It has nothing got to do with anything at all. It is there to make the dream seem like a real life scene. That is how dreams are worked out. They try and find the latent dream content and strip it away. What you are left with is the real meaning of your dream. Now we can also dreams of our fears. We can also dream of upcoming events if they are on our minds. To keep it simple a dream should make sense with your life. It may be played out in the style of a scene that seems real. But only parts of that scene is your actual true meaning of the dream. Dreams can't harm you. They are good for you. We all dream. Even if we don't remember them.

You are not alone with this! I actually thought I was legit hallucinating when I heard and saw random images a couple moments after I would shut my eyes. It made my anxiety increase even further. When I would close my eyes just to rest I would hear such random stuff such as, "I want to see Walt Disney, well then go!" I thought for sure I was hallucinating. This was until I saw a psychiatrist. Apparently this is very normal among people who suffer from extreme anxiety. It is as if our brain never wants to fully sleep. We are stuck in between. It is almost like I am listening to my own random thoughts actively without forcing the thinking if that makes sense. My doctor put me on trazadone for sleep so I no longer hear the word chatter or random images before bed. However, this morning I woke up and decided to go back to sleep and heard the random words. This time however it did not scare me because I knew what it was. I really would suggest seeing a psychiatrist. They can help reassure you and give you something for sleep. Our brains are extremely complex and can do a lot of weird things under extreme anxiety and stress. I wish you the best of luck!

You are not alone with this! I actually thought I was legit hallucinating when I heard and saw random images a couple moments after I would shut my eyes. It made my anxiety increase even further. When I would close my eyes just to rest I would hear such random stuff such as, "I want to see Walt Disney, well then go!" I thought for sure I was hallucinating. This was until I saw a psychiatrist. Apparently this is very normal among people who suffer from extreme anxiety. It is as if our brain never wants to fully sleep. We are stuck in between. It is almost like I am listening to my own random thoughts actively without forcing the thinking if that makes sense. My doctor put me on trazadone for sleep so I no longer hear the word chatter or random images before bed. However, this morning I woke up and decided to go back to sleep and heard the random words. This time however it did not scare me because I knew what it was. I really would suggest seeing a psychiatrist. They can help reassure you and give you something for sleep. Our brains are extremely complex and can do a lot of weird things under extreme anxiety and stress. I wish you the best of luck!

Thanks. Your description rings a bell. Its words and an image that I get as I drift off. Random words and image. Like two women walking into a hotel with the sentence "one of them will be able to do it". Random and vague in the sense they are snippets. Not complete. I get stressed and try to figure what the women were supposed to do. The half-dream thoughts just can come w/o my thinking them. Or if I was thinking something they can sort of key off of that in a vague way.

I know sleep disorders are a part of GAD but on symptoms lists I haven't read about this half-awake/half-asleep phenomena. It's not really a nightmare or bad dream as is mentioned on some symptom lists.

Lucid dreams are very common. They are like living what you dream about. Because part of the mind is actually awake. As to the meaning of dreams. I never buy into all that symbols in dreams rubbish. Consider the brain as been like a giant computer. You go through your average day. You take a lot in during a full day. It has to be sorted out. This happens when we sleep. It is sorted into long term memory, the things we need to be able to remember and short term memory, the things we don't need to remember. Now we also have a thing called latent dream content. This is the BS content of every dream. It has nothing got to do with anything at all. It is there to make the dream seem like a real life scene. That is how dreams are worked out. They try and find the latent dream content and strip it away. What you are left with is the real meaning of your dream. Now we can also dreams of our fears. We can also dream of upcoming events if they are on our minds. To keep it simple a dream should make sense with your life. It may be played out in the style of a scene that seems real. But only parts of that scene is your actual true meaning of the dream. Dreams can't harm you. They are good for you. We all dream. Even if we don't remember them.

Thanks for the reply.

I guess I am too focused on making sense of these half in between "dreams". It's like part of them are conscious and part sub-conscious. The sub-conscious part not being clear. So it's hard to make the "dreams" make sense.

For whatever reason, the past two nights I got to sleep with minimal hypnagogic issues. Still waking up at 3 or 4 anticipating them and they do manifest then.

I guess the other thing that threw me was that this came on literally overnight. Suddenly I noticed and fixated on it. Though, as I think back, I have had random hynagogic events over the years. I recall a years ago hynagogic dream where I was bowling down a neighboring street. It never bothered me. Maybe this was happening at a low level all along and I just didn't pay attention.